Haas boss Ayao Komatsu has explained the decision to dampen the team’s expectations heading into the 2024 Formula 1 season was made to avoid looking “stupid”.
The American squad languished bottom in the Constructors’ Championship for the third time in four seasons last term amid recurring struggles with tyre degradation.
Komatsu, who replaced Guenther Steiner at the helm, claimed that Haas would be on the back foot as it strived to undo a failed late-season update package in Austin.
However, Haas has emerged as a positive surprise with the VF-24 proving to be a competitive midfield car, accumulating 27 points in the first 14 rounds to lie seventh.
But Komatsu has denied that setting lower predictions was done as a tactic to lower the pressure on Haas, citing that he didn’t envisage its rivals experiencing issues.
Both Alpine and Williams have encountered trouble with overweight cars, while Sauber remains point-less with a package that hasn’t delivered the gains it anticipated.
“Honestly, I knew how much improved over the winter [we were],” Komatsu told Autosport.
“You know how small we are, I know how late we started, I know how much time we wasted by doing the Austin upgrade.
“So, I had to assume people with at least the same resource or three times [the resource] will do at least as good a job as us because I know people are not stupid, right?
“So, I had to assume that you cannot count on people being 10kg overweight or totally messing up the concept. You cannot count on that, you’ve got to make your own result.”
Komatsu has argued that asserting Haas had the pace to score points at the outset would have opened the side up to receive criticism should it have underdelivered.
“It’s pretty simple. We are 300 people. The next smallest team there is about three times as much,” he expanded.
“We started [thinking] like, ‘we wasted some time, how are we going to be better, right?’
“So, if I said, ‘loading out of door in Bahrain, we’re going to be P8’, either I’m stupid or arrogant, one or the other.
“Then luckily for us, some other people messed it up, but I cannot count on that.
“When you’re doing the business, when you’re doing anything, you cannot come for other people’s mess. You’ve got to make your own fortune. That’s what I’m trying to do.”
